


A Broken-Winged Bird and a Barren Field

by followbutterfly



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutant Rights, Mutantphobia, Parallel Universes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, politics is not in the right place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4106227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followbutterfly/pseuds/followbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles had known something wrong inside of him since he opened his eyes for the first time to welcome the world outside his mother’s womb. He was a telepath and also a human sponge who absorbed people's memories, not only that, he can steal them. And the power was beyond his control.  </p><p>This is a Charles's self-discovering journey, not a professor who guides all mutants to better paths but a lost person to be found for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first Cherik fanfic I've ever posted in AO3. Honestly, deep down I still don't know how to write. *laugh nervously* Thank you a ton to my beta and friend; Karine who knows what I'm doing better than I am and encourages me to write something for a change and finally I give the writing a try. I'm not an English native speaker, so feel free to judge me with a comment below. I'm really appreciated anything you guys stumbling upon this fic will do.
> 
> The title comes from a Langston Hughes's poem named "Dreams".

1

There could be so many bad lucks for having a baby. Yet Sharon would had never expected hers would be the worst. She wished she would have known the fate clawing in ahead of time, so she could not have had a baby at all. Her baby, her only child named Charles.

Charles is not human, Sharon moaned. She used to sob until her body collapsed and passed out for the whole day as when she had knew what Charles could do and destroy her. But then she only moaned for passing such an affliction. Charles, Sharon thought, was not meant to be fixed. Her motherhood became the first thing that stopped acting out to protect the baby. Even though Sharon wanted to love her own child, her instinct resisted it.

 _Charles is not human_ , she repeated to herself when her decision was made. How could he be when he could do all those things? Her fingers were shaking; her shoulder blades couching down and her hair ragged out. She was going insane if she started to have a bond with him as a son and realized who he is or what he is. She could no longer face her mischance. Sharon made a move to the bed where the baby Charles was there. She took a last glimpse of him, just a quick glance to see his blue eyes, staring at her.

 _Now, it was about to be done. I will not regret what I’m doing._ She thought, as slowly as she could with her trembling hands, holding her baby for one last time.

All was fading into the white blank vacuum.

 

2

 

Charles had known something wrong inside of him since he opened his eyes for the first time to welcome the world outside his mother’s womb. He remembered all those details; blood, screams, the hands snatching him out of the goring string tied his body with his mother, and another scream.The coming after is different; talking, as Charles recalled, and then sobbing for a long time, probably a few days. Later, all he knew was silence.

His memories were rewinding in his head like short scenes from time to time. Since he was a child, he did not knew how it mean when his mother, at the last time him memorizing her, touched his face. Then Charles learned that it means she abandoned him by touching him to wipe out all memories about her mistaken child. It was one and only thing he could do to fulfill her wish and he can. He can always wipe out all memories from other people.

It was something wrong with him. Besides his ability to read their mind, he can steal a person’s memories. At once, all becoming that person was gone forever, leaving only a body shell with an empty soul. 

It was beyond his control. Charles knew more about his power when he was four. A woman called herself a baby sister named Jane tried to touch him for the first time. She had a bright smile, freshly graduated from a college with a Child Psychology degree. Her first job was to observe and babysit a child from a rich family. Jane was being happy when she got her sum from the butler without knowing about Charles's monstrous ability. She brought him to take a bath, carrying him over his shoulder, singing a lullaby as no other maids never did. 

But when her shift was over, she couldn’t remember how to get home. Jane burst out into tears while telling the butler why she didn’t leave the house even her working hours are over. She was stranded in the stairs because she also forgot where the front gate was. 

The following day, without being aware of what happened, Jane came back. She counted the day before as her stupidity, _a huge embarrassment for the first day at work_ ; she blushed when she said that to the butler who can be ignorant as his mother’s money told him to be. Jane came to his room with a cheerful smile and hugged him. “How was your day, little Charlie”, she always called him like that until her last day. Charles absorbed her another piece of memories and said nothing. Piece by piece, Charles was getting to know her from the inside while Jane in her last day could not remember him at all. He continued stealing her memories until the last time. Charles remembered Jane’s face was blank. She was watching him but did not acknowledge his existence at all. The butler told the driver to send her home. Jane’s body was moving as the butler told after that, Charles never saw her again. Jane’s incident was forgotten long ago for most of people in the house. It was just Charles who remembered her and knew her as a person who always has a bright smile and a kind heart as a babysitter could be.

Charles learned from Jane's demise that it took his mother around a month to completely forget about him as Jane did. But Sharon intentionally delete her memories since he knew what her son is. She wrote a will, prescribed by her personal doctor to announce her Alzheimer’s disease as she bribed him and leave Charles with a great deal of fortune. Charles was under for her new husband's parental guardian, Kurt; who knew a little of Charles but knew enough to consider him as a monster. Kurt always kept Charles in his old father’s room and hired a teachers to homeschool him, feeding him from time to time but rarely looking at him or seeing him as a family member. Charles remained a ghost, only let alive only by the inheritance law.

 

3

 

His childhood was clouded by his captive. He spent those years surrounded by books. Reading was the only trustworthy companion whom Charles could not steal anything from. He read and memorized all those knowledge and became mastery of all knowledge recorded in all those books. He learned that the person whose ability was reading the other’s mind, mythically called the telepath. 

Still, stealing another’s memories are not included as a telepath’s ability. It was never mentioned, but Charles could come up with a reason so easy like he always had the answer with him for so long. It was not a special ability but an unbearable curse. Destroying a person from the inside was not cool for a telepath. Their ability should not be such a disturbance like his.  
Still, Charles called himself a telepath, because at least he can identify to something not the monster as he actually was. _I’m a telepath._ He repeated to himself, smiling coyly.

“I’m Charles, Charles Xavier.” He said his name when he met a girl in a stunning blue form. “I thought I could be the only one in the world, you know, different.”

She was smiling at him, a real smile like Jane always did. “Raven,” she responded to him.

Charles did not want to make a mistake because he did want to be friend with a girl. For he told her about his ability, as he knew later as his mutation. Raven gets confused, her smile fading. Before Charles would fear she will be leaving him, Raven’s youngish face was replaced by determination, focusing on what she would said.

“I won’t let you touch me, unless you read my mind without my permission,” She told him stiffly, “then I will go and kick you, so I can forget about you reading my mind and become friends again.”

It was Charles’s smile that is brighter than hers.

Charles bargained his one of his third left fortune with letting Raven live with him. No one believed she would last for one week but Raven managed to be by his side. She was playing her doll and papers with him in the misty room in a blond haired girl form she told him she always used to disguise. With her presence, Charles became more relaxed and alive. He had someone to tell the stories to, sharing his eagerness on genetics and mutation, as he continued studying more. Raven wore a boring expression when he rambled on her, but it could only made Charles love her more.

“Next time you have to tell me about Beauty and the Beast,” Raven pouted.“I can’t stand your nerdy mode anymore.”

Raven always wanted to hear about fairy tales, especially the story of a girl falling in love with a deformed beast. Charles would always patiently told her, “the tale isn’t real, Raven. Science is real. They are facts and can be looked forward to improvement. We can use science to fix many things in our life when the fairy tales can’t.”

“But it makes me happy!” Raven retorted, tossing her doll on Charles’ face. “At least I am happy that Belle did not want Beast to change into another person. She wants him as who he is and I think it is the most romantic story I’d love to hear.”

Charles sighed. He knew he would spoil her but eventually told her a story one more time. Raven smiled at her triumph.

Yet, Charles would seek for a chance to tell her about his made up theories about the people like them; mutants. He was always fascinated of day by day during hearing the news about them and Raven started to yawn and curl herself up on the couch nearby him, pretending to sleep.

“They were everywhere and needed help, Raven. They need to have friends and don’t want to be alone.” He whispered to her as sitting on the floor, closing his genetics book, smiling when he saw her her breath taking in and out her blue form with a whimper. 

 

4

 

Years passed, the mutants become more and more noticeable. They are everywhere as Charles predicted and more actively presented. At first most people were terrified. Without knowledge about mutants, humans always feared of what they did not know. People blamed mutants for all chaos they made to get a right to be a citizen or even a rightful human. Charles usually heard Kurt scolding at the TV outside his room when a group of mutants officially announced their rights after a hundred times of protests.

“Those cockroaches,” Kurt scorned and spit on the TV. “After this time the world will be madness. No peace will be with us if those still exist.”

Charles winced during the eavesdropping. His mind was overwhelmed by Kurt’s hatred towards mutants. Charles was shaken by the thought that his stepfather would consider his peculiar mentality as a mutation. While Charles’s mind was full of plans for accusations, ready to defend himself, Raven’s body was stiffen beside him. She definitely heard what Kurt said and changed her appearance to her original blue form, naked. Her yellow eyes were glaring at the door as if she could see Kurt through the invisible door.

“One day, Charles,” her voice was strong and threatening as Charles never heard of before. “One day I will strangle him with these blue hands, making him plead for forgiveness for those insults.”

Her determination makes Charles shiver. He did not dare to say anything to her.

After the announcement, Charles never knew his life would change forever. He began to acknowledge the change through Raven first. She became more often in her blue form with him than her pretty blond appearance as she was young. She even walked in the living room once, making Cain, Kurt’s son, scream in fright. “Get this fucking monster out of my house!”

Raven only smiled fiercely at Cain. Charles sensed the fear from Cain rather than being a cocky as the asshole usually was. He knew Cain would not dare to harm Raven not because of her appearance but her anger towards him.

“I just want you to know that I will not hide myself from you or the other humans anymore.” Raven made a clear voice. “You and Kurt will never hurt Charles and me again otherwise…” She left the unfinished sentence hanging in the air. Cain’s face was twitched with horror like he was facing the ghost.

Since then, Charles was allowed to be outside the room. Even though he was grateful to Raven, he wasn’t happy about it. The mutants are more in the public due to the news. Their announcement for human rights broke through as the phenomenon. Their movements were recorded as the breakout in human history. Charles knew later on that their success was based on the U.S. government support during the cold war. Craving for legendary like Lincoln, the president at that time allowed mutants to have their rights as Lincoln dismissed all Black slavery for politics. The U.S. wanted to look more credible among the UN, so the government can accuse The Soviet Union about dismissing the mutants instead. 

As shallow as it sounded, mutant’s political rights also gave Charles a right to study in schools. The application form was sent to his house from many institutions that wanted to take a big credit for accepting mutants as the first place. With his knowledge, Charles could pass through and went on studying at the university at 16 but He still insisted on studying all these new things at home against Raven’s protest.

“You should go to see people, Charles! You can’t live in the dump hole until you die!”

Charles tried not to be angry with her. “It is not about being a mutant. It’s about my conditions-”

“Your mutation should not matter anymore! The mutants are allowed to be on their own and live! What you're doing is taking your chance for granted-”

“Don’t you forget Jane’s misfortune? I saw her losing herself without help. What about my mother? I don’t want to risk anything and it has nothing to do with mutants. No one has mutation like mine.” 

He was on the brink of crying, he knew with Raven he could barely hide his weakness. 

“I can’t even control myself not to destroy people’s lives. Even your appearance is more acceptable than being a monster like me.”

Raven’s nose flared. Her yellow eyes are widened with frustration. She was close to cry like him, emotions dancing through her face. For all Charles had knew her, Raven rarely cried.

“You are a coward.” She screamed. “Who the hell once said all mutants shouldn't be alone? I remembered you told me yourself, Charles. Now you are jealous of my mutation because you used to think my hideous look'd better hide as your stinky nut. ”

 _This is getting worse._ Charles told himself. Raven was still looking for his explanation, but he couldn’t bring any accusation to justify himself. God knows how he can fix this. After that Raven stormed out of the room, leaving him sitting with tears on his face.

 

5

 

Raven sneaked into his room while Charles was sleeping on the bed. She sat quietly on his bed, breathing fast. Charles became aware of her presence because Raven’s tangled mind, overwhelmed by emotions even though he did not read it. She was crying beside him.

“I’m sorry,” Her voice was trembling and worse than the afternoon. Raven touched his blanket, not knowing Charles was already awake. It was not a direct physical touching. She whispered, “I wish you could delete our fighting from my memories but I know it wouldn’t be fair for you to bear it alone.”

Charles wanted to stop the tears from coming back again but he couldn’t. He let them dropping on his pillow in the darkness.  
“I just, I know it was so stupid,” Raven continued, “I just wanted you to come with me, Charles. Get out of this house and never come back again. I got accepted from a school in New York and I really wanted you to live with me. I can’t live without you and you always know that.”

She did not hold back her tears anymore. Raven was sobbing now. “I want us being together against all the bad things in the world and I wanted to hug you so bad. You are only my family and I know it is stupid because it means rejecting of who you are. I always fear that if I said I wanted to hug you when you feel sad will make you sadder. I’m so stupid, Charles. I don’t know what to do but I care about you so so much.”

Raven was not good with words but she was in the worst when she was crying. Charles dared not to even move but he felt her warmth around him when she bent her body to snuggle him above the blanket. Strangely, it was the first time close to a hug Charles could get from the person he loved the most.

The hug lasted for so long until Charles thought Raven already fell asleep over him. He was sweating because the tight of blanket covered his body but he feared to move away. Suddenly, the weight on his bed shifted away. He heard Raven moved around his bed, doing something he couldn’t see. Only Charles could do was closing his eyes, pretending it was a dream.

He woke up in the morning and Raven was gone. The note is left with her childish handwriting; _I love you Charles, and I will come back._ without any address for Charles to find her.

 

6.

 

Charles expected Raven’s missing would cause him a breakdown but it didn’t. Even though he had feel distraught, something in Raven made him get by. The night when she came to see him had left something started to ignite from the inside. They both made a decision for themselves. Charles was not ready to explore the world so as Raven can’t keep herself in shell any longer when opportunity awaits. She was always a strong person whom Charles trust, and he trusted her to guide him to find a new path as well.

He graduated from university at 17, the youngest with Genetics degree. He continued studying more about psychology and mutants affairs as his double master degrees. It was the only time his curse is his benefits. Charles could memorize every detail and achieved at the highest rank at the top among the scholars. He studied at home by explaining his inevitable conditions through the letter even he knew it actually came from his fear to face the reality, as Raven always said. He got a confidential life from other people but also tried kept in touch with the outside. He interacted with the others via letters and started writing a few articles about mutants and politics on a prestigeous magazine called X-genes with a pseudo name; Professor X about how mutants still have been treated unfair and prejudiced even after the legitimacy. 

It was in the Spring 1974, when Charles was twenty two years old and left the house for the first time his life. He saved up money from his book sales; _Genetics and Mutations_ , at the same time finished his PH.D in mutation and genetics specialty without using any dollar from Sharon’s fortune. Charles was determined to leave his past behind and started a new life in the apartment in New York. At that time he got offered a job to use his ability, not only his telepath, but his curse he mentioned once to the agency.

It was not the lecturer in the university people would expect a PH.D. graduate to do with their degree. It was about counseling. A private firm offered him with a high salary and welfare to be their special counselor, dealing with PTSD people whether to wipe out their traumatic memories, getting their lives go on.

It was peculiar as it could be but Charles accepted that position. Even he did not know how to really interact with people. He always knew them from textbooks, people’s mind is more handling and and less problematic but he was not certain about how the real people could be.

Charles thought about Raven and her favorite tale. Finally the beast started to follow what Belle told him to do; taking a risk and living a life.

Now he was about to do so.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of chapter contains Logan/Charles as in the warning. Any comments will be welcomed.

 

The cool breeze from the balcony helped Charles to relax from that phone call. From where he was standing was the park across his apartment where people had been lingering on the Saturday evening, enjoying family time. Charles watched some children playing with dogs. People watching grew as his favorite habit since when he needed to see real people doing normal things he couldn’t do.

Charles lit his cigarette. He started to smoke since the first year as the counselor and the addiction became more difficult to quit. His work was stressful and it required more energy to focus and bury something inside. He was the garbage for the clients to throw their unwanted memories. And Charles couldn’t help but working to balance his stress with anything he could get a hand on to release those troubling feelings from the others in his mind.

He hung up a phone call from a client. A woman was pleading him to eradicate her memories about her ex-husband who cheated on and abandoned her with a five-month baby in the belly. Charles sighed while their conversation was still hanging in a thick air of calamity. Those memories never, and ever went away. The woman still didn’t give up on the contract even Charles insisted that he couldn’t do it. Frist, her case was sympathetic enough but not caused by a trauma, more likely a heart-breaking mime. Secondly, He would not remove her memories during her pregnancy, whether she would keep the baby or not. It would cause a drastic effect to a child whom even the mother would never acknowledge its being.

Charles’s stomach churned when he thought of the last conversation and how she desperately pressed him to do with her husband’s menacing abuse story. He couldn’t help but thinking about his own mother. What would she do if she known there was a ‘healing process’ to choose at that time? Charles thought it would make no difference, at least to him. His mother would have wanted to get rid of the unwanted baby by her own choice no matter what cost she had to take.

 

 

The weather got colder until Charles could not stand in the open air. He retreated from the room after a half an hour outside, littering the butt and sucked out the fresh air. His head was still clouded by other people’s messed up mind. The last one was a Soldier from the Vietnam War. Charles clung onto his head for a month until he could wipe of his entire memories in the war. To work on it, He had been suffering from nightmares, repeatedly with the screams, gunshots and goring of blood and sense of hardcore fear and hopelessness. The worst was boredom and emptiness of how a life could go. The question was haunting not only his client, but him either.

Even though Charles had a strong, vigorous will to prove his power would do anything good, what kept him doing such a work that can torment him every day and night was an arrogance that grew into an addiction. It was an obsession since he wanted to fix up his childhood and looked up for the future with a power that still ingrained to him. Making it a good use will be an obnoxious sign that he wouldn’t come back to the past life he dragged himself out of before. It sounded slightly promising as Charles wanted but couldn’t dare to hope.

Hank had always told him how crazy he was and repelled him to quit. He was close to be considered as a friend. He was a physics student who lived in the dorm near his apartment. They had seen each other from time to time in the local library in the science sections. Charles started to make at least one friend and Hank was kind enough to be one. They did not have to touch each other and that would a benefit for an adult friendship that Charles would never have when he was a child, longing for human loving touch. They had been keeping in touch on each other since then.

“It will take you less than two years to become an Alzheimer's disease but before that you will have to cope with depression, sleep-deprivation and insanity. Plus one day you will go mad.”

Charles chuckled. Hank’s warning reminded him of himself when he used to warn Raven with a fatherly concerned tone. Hank unintentionally mimicked it so perfectly.

“I've been coping with it. It’s not that I’m suicidal or anything,” he rambled. “It’s my intention that wanted to keep on.”

“For how long? Don’t tell me you really want to do this job. With such a talent like you, you could’ve become a professor. No need for physical contact or anything and it is a fine job you deserve.” Hank retorted.

He could tell this was the line Hank always wanted to tell him, even knocked his sense by shaking him if he could.

“I know. I will quit, okay? If I know myself I reached the limit. I promise.”

But Charles didn’t quit even he had known he already hung on his reach for a while. Self-destruction as he always was, he often joked with himself. It might run through family gene that made him wanted to push over it. He continue overcoming those nightmares to find the balance so he could still suffer from pain and can be healed aftermath over and over again, to feel like he accomplished something worthwhile.

 

Coincidentally, he did. It was something Charles had never expected he could do, it was sex.

After the ‘healing process’ of the woman whose case Charles took it as one of the most disturbing ones. She had been violated by sexual relationship with her father in a very unusual way. She told him, with her shaking voice that she needed to end this promiscuity as she was used to please him after her parent’s divorce. He met up with her in person to talk and touch her, holding her hands with as if he committed an affirmed vow. It took him three times in meeting to finally get rid of her memories about her father, but the consequences were left with Charles alone.

It brought him suffering with nightmares a couple of weeks, which was quite usual to him, but something strange happened as well. He felt what the poor woman had been through, not only pain but the need to be touched with possessive force. The vigorous desire was burning his body like fire.

He went to the bar after the late night in the second week after the woman case because he could not stand jerking off every night to pass on the unbearable needy feeling. He was almost blinded by his lust, so whiskey strongly helped his crotch hard under the pants. His first night was a man, similar to the woman’s father in her memories; tall, strong arms, short hair like a soldier.

The first time was blurred, full of stars and white blank orgasm. He was drunk enough not to care with his power. It was also the first time he couldn’t remember anything since he was born and Charles considered it was the best thing happened against all odds. He woke up and saw a stranger sleeping on the bed in the cheap motel and decided to peek out his mind.

It was so messed up. Charles picked up pieces from what happened last night. Without consciousness, he had asked him for the blindfold, spanking and tied up with mattress pulled as a rope to the cardboard. Besides being embarrassed and ashamed, he was  _relieved_ ; the memories showed that he merely stole anything from the stranger, or not the core of his memories. The other woke up. The sign of remembrance was shown on the grin when he looked at Charles and tried to crawl back onto him. Charles rapidly searched for his memories. The one missing was the memories of his breakfast the day earlier.

He almost shouted out to himself. It was clear that he didn’t steal the memories of the stranger he just had physically touched the whole night. He tried once more, with a third shot of pure vodka and went off the bar with a woman. The same miracle happened. She lost her memories about the birthday date of her boyfriend that came into Charles’ mind instead.

The curse had its shortage with anyone Charles rarely felt attached with, or only for the real physical touching without emotions. It made sense when he considered the earlier cases in his childhood. Her mother only touched him about minutes after her memories wiped out due to their blood bonding. Jane was the first person he felt her genuine smile and caring and his curse affected on her in the short terms. And his clients, for a month’s healing process, undoubtedly provoked some emotions to Charles to eventually care for them, or at least for their wrecked, broken memories.

It allowed only his body instinctively acted to response with lust but without feelings, like a machine that needs to be energized or an animal in the spring.  _To hell with the curse_ , Charles thought then he went off to the bar, pick another stranger to fuck.

So Charles’s life was used up with a lot of sex and stress and nightmares repeatedly happened but he learned to get used to it, even enjoyed it its silent rhythm.

 

One of a restless night, he met a man with over one’s life-time memories named Logan.

It was a wild night on Christmas holidays when Charles met him and knew his power, not only the metal claws as he used to tease but Logan’s wondrous mind. It was like a journey getting through his many layers and with his power he could unlock some. Charles knew that he found they get along pretty well due to their solitude figures. They both need no one, but still want someone to hold on in some nights but lack of feelings involved. Logan’s long-timed memories fit with Charles’s condition that no matter he steals a piece of it, the whole still remained.

“I don’t give a damn about your power,” said Logan, a beer bottle swinging close to his lips. “as long as you make sure they all gone. It’s full of shit.”

Turned out Logan didn’t lose a bit and their relationship had begun since then. Logan’s presence was closed to Charles’s sex partner he didn’t expect to commit to, yet it was distant enough with no emotions invaded. Charles occasionally stole the man’s memories. Most of them are tiny bits of histories that even Logan sometimes had forgotten they happened: the massacre in Civil Wars, the Dunkirk beach, the journey on the ship to France in World War II, the battle in Soviet War. None of these matter much to Logan and somehow Charles helped him to get through those things.  From time to time, Charles was convinced Logan was being healed as he was.

 

 

Charles woke up in the late morning with Emma’s call. 

“Glad you finally pick the damn phone,” She said. “I called you million times last night but I guess you are on the fling until now.”

“Best guess,” Charles yawned. He hadn’t minded taking an offense on her sarcasm since he knew her by now. “What’re you up to?”

“An unusual client,” She started, “if you want to, I can’t tell you the details until you give me my word. This is a very confidential case.”

There was something strange in her voice that almost made Charles reluctant. He neither rejected the case, nor was deflected by her warning before. Emma was his boss, the founder of the firm and also the telepath as him. She was at the omega level telepath and specialized in medical surgery, searching through the false cells on the patient’s brains, attempting to cope with neuroscience surgery. She was also the first one of the telepaths who started using their mutation to work as the specialist. “It’s time people have to be knocked down by the truth we are far more capable in doing these things we are born to do.” She told him once when the knowledges about telepaths were still on the surface.

Emma took a long breathe then she explained, “This one insisted not to talk to you on phone. He prefers the letters”

“What?”

“A letter, Charles, as most of people in nineteenth century used to fashionably do. He wants to ask you some questions before accept your service and continue your process. Is that fine?”

Since he was the only telepath who was in charge with other people’s memories, Charles didn’t reject the case. And if the other want to write, let him do.

“Then he would contact you in a few days. I don’t give him your address but he has to contact through the firm’s address.” Emma concluded.

“Then I think I have no choice.”

 

Three days later, Charles a letter came from Emma.

_Hello,_

 

_I know it must have been out of place when you have to talk to a person with letters while having a phone call would make it better. Since I have moved so often from places to places. Even somewhere we don’t even have a phone number._

_On the other hand, I also prefer writing. It makes my thoughts more tranquil which constantly they are running wild. As a written form, it gets me to talk to my settled consciousness. Well, writing a letter to someone I don’t know is different, yet I hope it will be a fresh start._

  _As I said I have traveled many places, then I just moved to live not far from New York. I heard from a friend that there is a healing process run by telepaths, the counseling that can do something with memories and I find it mesmerizing. Could I ask you a question then, how do you feel about working to wipe out people’s memories for a living?_

  _I don’t have any telepaths around. There are some debates flying here and there that mutants nowadays have been doing jobs to serve as human labors. It was economically necessary, but at the same time we do not get anywhere far from since mutants announcement officiated in eight years ago. But I think mutants still exist to serve human’s vacancy._

  _I’m sorry if this is hard for you but this letter will not reveal any of my life yet, if it’s what you expect me to tell. I have to make sure I can trust you because what I have in my head all the time is also a part of what I am now._

_Good days._

 

There was no name put on the end of the letter.

 

Charles blinked. He couldn’t respond to his client simultaneously. He took time to take in and put out his thoughts in words.

He sit back on the armchair and read the letter again. No one, especially his clients had asked him about his work, or even how he feels. This man must be a quiet type, but generally not easily to be played off with. He was certainly a mutant and  a radical one. Charles felt amazed but unnerved. He wrote ‘ _we’_ included others living with him; a wife perhaps. He moved a lot and still managed to have friends around without a settlement?

The last part wasthe strangest. Charles convinced himself that that this man was unwilling to let him do the counseling. He was tricking on him, but into what? Charles didn’t know.

He tried to call Emma but the line was busy. It was the rush time in a day that she was probably in the surgery room. Charles hung up and went to the balcony and smoked. He stood there for an hour, watching new people in the same surrounding at the park for a while, then he came back to his studies room and decided to write the reply with a cautious mind.

_Hello, my friend who minds to be named._

 

_My name is Charles. It was quite new for me, receiving a letter from a person I barely know. But I decided to address you as a friend and writing the reply to you will be less formal if now you’re my companion in writing._

 

_I understand your uneasiness, but I can’t help myself feel intrigued by some facts you don’t directly tell me. You are a mutant, a quite actively one, I’m sure. I heard a lot of mutants news and I don’t disagree with you. We are working to serve the general people with our abilities, but we also made our own extension to do what we could at best. It is a compensation for mutants and humans to accommodate one another._

 

_It is not a satisfying position from both, mutants or humans but it was the finest place humans and mutants can live together and continue considering on another’s potential, as long as both of them are in use of one another. It was a tactical way to live, I would say._

 

_I appreciate your concern about my feeling that you’re kind enough. I’m doing very well at my work. I have been working for five years since I moved to New York. I can’t tell you about any of my cases but I must say it is challenging. The key is how you can cope with it, find the balance between to absorb and release some you don’t want in your head, another way is to bury them deep until they are forgotten._

 

_I understand your conditions and can accept that you want to get to know me until you trust me to share your memories and find a way to help you sort them out. But my friend, what is for you to call yourself ‘a what’ of how the past makes you become a person as you are today?_

 

_I’m looking forward to another response and hope you have a good day too._

_Charles_

 

This was honest enough. Charles thought, even he left the part of his real mutation: the curse he bore for all along because it was no good to tell.

 

The birthday party in Sean’s house was loud and cozy. Charles was dragged to the party because Sean was one of Hank’s few friends. They were also mutants who knew about Charles’s mutation and understood. Besides, Sean was harmless one and Charles admired his optimism.

When He arrived, Sean was surrounded by people and laughing at his own jokes. Charles greeted him politely and got a greeting, ‘Good to see you professor!” from Sean though he was not. Sean always called him like that, because Charles’s worn out blue cardigan and tweets.

He was politely social able enough, giving Sean a leather notebook he’d wanted for so long and left to the balcony for smoke. His face is touched with frizzling snow in the same coldness he was familiar with in his room, then another figure came to stand near him. It was Angel.

She smiled to him. An another mutant who knew about his power and safe enough to be around and good at keeping secrets even she was, sort of a turbulent one living half of her life in the orphan and then in the prison for vandalism and treated with mistrust more often than taken as a friend.

She nodded at him, handing him a cigarette for the light. Charles obligated her. They were standing without looking at each other but outside in the sky, opened for the night wind and lights out there.

“How are you doing?” Angel asked with a casual tone, as usual.

“I’m good. How’s yours?”

“It’s pretty rough, though I’m sure those assholes will be kicked out soon.”

“It’s your choice, you know.” Charles tried to touch the subject so lightly.

“Yeah, said from  _a professor._ ” She emphasized the word and Charles sighed with exhaustion.

“There’s no need to mock me. I have already pity myself, Angel.”

She didn’t laugh but eyed on him. After a moment pause she said.

“I came here to tell you,” She never said anyone’s name. “That I met your sister, Raven.”

It took him a long while to articulate what she had said even the breath he didn’t dare to take in. The silence inside Charles’s head broke into million pieces.

Angel seemed to understand him.

“Sorry for the rush, but I can’t bring this to you in other moments.” She dragged a long breath and took the smoke out of the white air. “I knew her for a while. She was a friend of a girl I work with.”

Charles tried to restrain himself even it was eight years since someone said her name out loud. Angel looked at him with an unreadable expression, then went on.

“I don’t give her details but I’m sure she knows about you. I don’t give a shit what’s between you and I don’t want to pry--, ” She paused and Charles felt he was observed the reaction but he gave her nothing.

“You know, she makes me swear I won’t tell about her but I think you deserve to know.”

“Is that all?”

Angel sighed. “She is now out of town. I know her from a friend, so she doesn’t really trust me to tell anything after all.”

“How is she?”

“Blue.” Angel grinned. “And pretty tough one, considered a girl living with her own device, she is fine.”

Charles couldn’t find the reason why his heart ached and burning like a charcoal. “You said she is a friend of your co-worker, does it mean—”

“No, she doesn’t work as I do,” Angel disrupted, not seeming to take it an as offense. “Only I know is she is off and on. She doesn’t give me a clue about her work but I think she knows enough about you and how I know you.”

Charles didn’t notice he hold breathe for so long he sucked the air into his lung. The smoke was thick and nauseous like he had never felt before. His stomach stirred with a sickening grunt and his throat was dry like sand in the heart of the desert hole even it was in the winter.

Angel coughed, “It’s not my business but I think she is proud of you. She doesn’t hesitate to say she was once your sister.”

Angel decided to leave him in the balcony, excused herself to refill a glass of wine. From the inside the laughter continued and Sean’s voice is the loudest and brightest. Charles took a long smoke for one last time then left the house without anyone noticed.

 

He didn’t expect the letter would be returned at the instant but the envelope was found, lying in the post box next morning. He also got a voice mail from Emma that this client accepted and turned into the further step of process.

Charles didn’t want to be surprised or even wonder why this man trusted him. He opened the letter and read.

 

  _Charles,_

_You would have known that I decided to take the healing procession which was farther than I had expected. I scarcely trust my feeling but it feels right to continue writing to you._

 

_But it doesn’t mean I’m pleased with your letter. It wasn’t close to persuade me why you’re doing your job. Let me clear to you my friend, there is no right or wrong in this world. Making peace can be equivalent to making yourself arrogant. I know because I’m the one either._

_You said about compensation but what you have gained from this position only pain and all those ugliest memories, no one but you who take in but do not have a chance to let out. Memories are not used up to bury, Charles. They are meant to torment and haunt you that make you become of who you are._

 

_As same as in conscience, you mentioned about the way to live. It’s like now you’ve been redeeming from something unpaid and it was so burdened. You did the job based on gratitude for your existence. I’m sorry if I am maddening you, but I always judge people but I’m capable of changing my mind.  I can apologize if I guess wrong, but most of my assumptions are true._

         

_You have any time to deny this healing process, as you claimed you have been doing it to ‘compromise with this world’. You certainly think my letter is disturbing. But when it comes to writing, as same as living in the world that needs to be fixed up, I can’t hide from its brutal honesty, or something you are absent from._

 

_And my name is Erik Lehnsherr. It’s nice writing to you, Charles._

_Have a good day._

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
